Generally, the invention relates to windmills, and more particularly, the invention relates to systems, methods and devices for transferring wind energy into a mechanical motion.
Windmills have long been used to capture wind energy. Most persons are familiar with the windmills of Spain and the Netherlands. These windmills use spokes that are coupled to a central axel. The spokes typically have some type of wind-catching means attached to them. Accordingly, the wind catching means catch some wind, which causes the spokes to revolve and rotate the central vertical shaft. The rotation of the central axel is then captured rotational energy which can be put to use to grind grain, generate electricity, or to raise an object, for example.
More recently, windmills have been rediscovered as a new and effective way of generating electricity. These new windmills are often quite large and often appear in large numbers of groupings in power fields. However, windmills, old and new, have disadvantages. For example, old windmills are generally inefficient, while new windmills are quite large and difficult to place. Furthermore, very few windmills are capable of operating when the wind speeds are low. Accordingly, to overcome these and other disadvantages associated with existing methods of converting wind energy into mechanical energy, it would be advantageous to provide a windmill that is capable of capturing wind energy at low wind speeds, and that is easily placed. The invention provides such a device, system, and method
The invention provides technical advantages as a system, device and method for capturing wind energy, and than converting the wind energy into mechanical or electrical energy. In a system embodiment, the system includes a wind capture means that uses wind to generate a mechanical force, an energy coupling means for transferring the mechanical force to a horizontally mountable wheel having a shaft coupled thereto, and an energy transfer system that couples the mechanical force from the shaft to a machine. In a device embodiment, a wheel includes an airfoil support having a center portion, a stop location, and an airfoil location, and an airfoil is coupled to the airfoil support at the airfoil location. A method of driving the wheel uses a mounted airfoil to capture wind energy in an airflow, where the airfoil is mounted to a horizontally mountable wheel.
Of course, other features and embodiments of the invention will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art. After reading the specification, and the detailed description of the exemplary embodiment, these persons will recognize that similar results can be achieved in not dissimilar ways. Accordingly, the detailed description is provided as an example of the best mode of the invention, and it should be understood that the invention is not limited by the detailed description. Accordingly, the invention should be read as being limited only by the claims.